The president of the Iowa Farm Bureau is being named to the national board of directors for the Council for Ag Science and Technology, or CAST. Craig Hill, a farmer from Milo, says the panel’s purpose is to seek the most credible and reliable science to benefit producers and consumers. “Attempts to communicate scientific information regarding agriculture issues to policy makers, legislators and to the public — and of course farmers,” Hill says. “Farmers are always curious on what productive tools they have available and how to become better producers and to become more profitable.”
Hill says the CAST board deals with a wide array of issues, ranging from biotechnology and labeling to renewable fuels and antibiotics. “It may include food safety issues, it may include new maladies or viruses that hit the swine herd, PEDV (porcine epidemic diarrhea virus) and other issues like that,” Hill says. “Certainly, anything that has to do with food production, agriculture, would be considered.”
Hill says the CAST group will look at agriculture’s needs and hopefully assemble the right science to meet those needs.
(Reporting by Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton)